Would it be deemed a bad idea to transfer a cash isa to a stocks and shares type one in the current climate….is there a huge crash round the corner with the brexit thing looming etc

Looking at the ready made portfolios on hargreaves and landsdown .. the balanced growth medium risk option.

H&L seem well liked and i yold have a great ui for thick heads like me.

Never been into shares but a few on here seem to be knowledgeable on these things.

Any opinions greatly appreciated.

Ewm..

I have been considering this as well. I have my isa split between cash and stocks. The stocks have done very well, the cash is effectively going down. Long term shares will do well even if they dip in the short term so I think I will move most of it. Got my current stocks with fundsmith which is easy and cheap and has performed really well. I need to decide whether to increase that or diversify a bit

I’ve just put a few bob into a H & L ISA. I’ve also started a monthly DD with them, too. I’ve split it over 4 funds. I reckon there won’t be a crash for another year or so, so I think my advice would be – do it, but keep an eye on it. But I am completely clueless on these matters ….

I have all of my ISA in Stocks and shares (well funds which is the same thing) I monitor it almost daily and it is not invested in what I would call “risky” funds but I would not keep it in cash given the paltry rates available.

My 2 pence

It is certainly a more risky world today. That being said all my investments are in stocks and shares (globally) as above cash is effectively negative. If you can stand a 30% loss and don’t need the miney soon them imo its worth the extra risk. It is worth noting that the FTSE100 is up as most large companies in it earn their profits in $ somwith £ down they are more profitable in £ terms. Story not quite so rosey at say FTSE250 level. If you are worried about Brexit look at more FTSE100

I have some money in a stocks and shares ISA its earmarked for my son if he goes to uni (might cover a years tutition 🙂 ) Anyway I dont need it and its away long term as he’s only 6 so hopefully dips can be sat out. If its money you might need in the next few years be more cautious

As a long term investment it makes sense, even major recessions have only been relatively small dips in overall growth.

May not be so good if you’re likely to need to access the money in the next few years.

If you’re looking at funds with an international component, bear in mind that the weak pound means you are buying less actual shares for your money.

As above as a long term investment of 5+ years it makes sense. Remember the fund manager won’t be buying S&S in companies that are necessarily on a high at the moment, they will know what to invest in and when.

Buy a low cost tracker and forget about it 🙂

I’ve drunk the passive investing kool-aid and will be stashing some £££ away in the Vanguard VWRL ETF in my ISA.

Cheers all…

All my savings are in Stocks and Shares, don’t hold any cash at all.

I’m only interested in maximising long term value and will stomach the next crash when it comes…..

“Buy a low cost tracker and forget about it“

This.

I’m currently reshuffling stuff a bit to do exactly this.

Although the ftse 100 is touching record highs there are always bargains to be had. I topped up on rdsb shell this morning at 22 gbp, 7% yield paid quarterly usd denominated, so the current gbp weakness goes in your favour.

I have about 10 companies, tobacco, healthcare, consumer goods, some are all time highs so i may take some profits. Tbh once you are in you can just forget about them. Run your profits, cut your losses.

Not for the fainthearted maybe, but i aim to achieve 7% pa avg over 10 years. Compounded thats a doubling of your money in 10 years.

Sorry but is a low cost tracker still an isa…

Yes thats how thick i am… 😕

Would it be unwise to just choose a ready made portfolio and let h and l do the rest..

Like i say very new and clueless to choosing my own stocks

Yes the isa is just the tax free wrapper, you can put what you want into it.

I wouldnt buy a tracker at this level, it will yield 3.6% pa on avg. Capital wise you are more likely to lose money than gain and at 3.6% your divi income is secure but low. If you are set on a tracker i would either drip money in at say 1k pcm, or wait for a pullback, look at the history charts its coming, maybe tomorrow maybe next year but its on its way.

What sort of money do you have to be putting in a stocks and share ISA to make them worthwhile?

And do you have to manage them yourselves? Or are there companies that will do it for you (and probably give a lesser return)?

For the first time in 10yrs we’ll soon be able to save some money!

What we are thinking of doing is saving rather than massively over-paying on our mortgage (which would mean the mortgage is lower, but we won’t have any spare cash should we need it!).

Really depends on age and future need for the cash – I am in my late 40’s so for me pension is a better bet as you get a 20%/40% uplift straight away. And that doesn’t prevent from this being invested in shares.

What sort of money do you have to be putting in a stocks and share ISA to make them worthwhile?

And do you have to manage them yourselves? Or are there companies that will do it for you (and probably give a lesser return)?

Any amount really…

You can just pick a management company who will run the ISA for you (and charge you for it) and then buy managed funds or trackers and just forget about them for the next 20-30 years….

here is some info comparing fees

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/investing/isas/tables-the-cheapest-and-most-expensive-places-to-buy-an-isa/

In terms of options (from simplest to most complex) it’s roughly:

1. Pick a provides eg Tilney or Hargreaves Lansdown and just buy units in one of their portfolios
2. As above but pick some trakers / funds (eg Woodford) yourself
3. As above but pick individual shares and manage them yourself.

Me I go for option 2, pick a mix of trackers / funds and keep a loose eye on it, with the intention to cash in when I retire in 20+ years time….

Telegraph finance section is a good source of info on ISAs etc.

…and just forget about them for the next 20-30 years….

30 years would be nice – I’m 48 now! 😀

More like 12 to 15 yr timescale.

“…for me pension is a better bet as you get a 20%/40% uplift straight away“

Balanced against not being able to access any of it until you’re 55, and apart from pulling out 25% tax-free you’ll be paying 20%/40%/whatever-the-rate-is-by-then on the rest of it.

An ISA doesn’t get the tax relief, but OTOH it doesn’t get taxed when you take the money out.

This is the quandry I’m grappling with at the moment, and for now I’m coming down in favour of building a suite of ISAs.

LISAs might be worth a look for some people. They seem to be a pilot for when the government stops giving tax relief on pension contributions.

We have s&s ISA’s in Fundsmith,Woodford and Lindsell Train.
The Fundsmith was taken out directly with them and the other 2 through H L.
This week we’re going to take a Newton one out through H L and in the next tax year probably a moderate risk one.
Someone mentioned spreading their money through 4 different funds.As far as I am aware you can only take one s&s Isa out per tax year but can top up existing ones as well.Subject to max allowance.

apart from pulling out 25% tax-free you’ll be paying 20%/40%/whatever-the-rate-is-by-then on the rest of it.

no you’ll get the first 11k per annum (or whatever the personal allowance happens to be) tax-free. Which for many people, will be at least a large proportion of, and quite possibly all of, their pension.

(current higher-rate taxpayers might be hoping for more, but then again, they get the 40% uplift on the pension savings, and probably only pay 20% on the pension).

Pensions are very tax-efficient for many, though admittedly not all. I haven’t bothered because for my period of max earning I was a non-taxpayer (non-resident) so there didn’t seem any point.

If you go down the diy route its not worth buying less than say 2k, dealing costs are 10 gbp and stamp duty is 0.5%. So as above my 100 rdsb cost me 2k, 12.5 dealing fee 10 gbp stamp duty, thats the first 24p of any increase lost in fees.
The net is king, look on the woodford website he lists all his holdings, he has a proven track record so just copy him.

What I have in stocks & shares ISAs at the moment is doing well due to the crappy pound against dollar. Personally if buying any I’d be waiting for them to crash down again so you’re buying cheap, else you’ll be waiting 10-20+ years for them to creep up to a reasonable profit, if ever.

But then that depends what they’re invested in. Mine are ones I picked long ago and then gave up messing about with it and seem to be ones that do well from weak pound vs dollar. I occasionally check and shift a fund if I can understand what I’m doing and it seems worth it, but mostly I leave it alone. Though I’m thinking now might be the time to cash it in (or can I transfer it to a cash ISA with no charges?), else it will crash.

Majority of my investments though are cash plus the house, and then sizeable wedge in pension which supposedly is invested by far skilled people than me and yet it still predicts I’ll be out on the street begging when I retire. Pension pot size sounds good, but pension it buys you is so crap now.

If you go down the diy route its not worth buying less than say 2k, dealing costs are 10 gbp and stamp duty is 0.5%. So as above my 100 rdsb cost me 2k, 12.5 dealing fee 10 gbp stamp duty, thats the first 24p of any increase lost in fees.

I wouldn’t agree. Whilst you will lose a greater proportion of your initial investments in dealing charges, and yet more in the spread, if you can only buy a few hundred quid’s worth, and you prefer to buy individual shares , then do it! We all have had to start somewhere!

To the OP, check up on last weekend’s editions of the Telegraph and Sunday Times, and probably each weekend until the new tax year. They always run ISA investment guides and have a few solid tips for Funds and Trusts . Get a months subscription to Motley Fool or Investors Chronicle, usually free as a taster, and see what they are advising.
It really isn’t worth keeping cash in an ISA, as you will get better interest rates outside an ISA. Equities will appreciate quite nicely thanks, and you will soon begin to appreciate holding them within an ISA. Resist the urge to meddle, even if you see 20% wiped off their value the day after you buy them. You’ll get it back! Keep some cash in case of emergencies.

iWeb charge £25 joining fee and £5 per trade, with no other holding costs. They have improved their website and the research aint bad.

Yes thats a fair point, to elaborate i am planning to turn the purchase over and bank the gains. So for a 2k outlay i have 40 gbp costs, i want to clear say 100 gbp, so i need to make 140. Beauty of a fat quarterly dividend is that while i am waiting i am getting a nice divi.

I have actually bought 500 gbp if i saw a real bargain.

Investors chronicle mag and free podcast on a friday is excellent.

“no you’ll get the first 11k per annum (or whatever the personal allowance happens to be) tax-free.“

No, you’ll get £11k less the state pension amount tax-free. So just under £3k at current rates.

Someone mentioned spreading their money through 4 different funds.As far as I am aware you can only take one s&s Isa out per tax year but can top up existing ones as well.Subject to max allowance

We spread ours through different funds and different providers, just in case we have another Equitable Life / Bernie Maddoff incident.

So we have ISAs with one fund provider, SIPPs with another and within each of those, split the money between multiple fund managers eg Fundsmith, Woodfood etc.

I know everything should be covered by the FSA etc, but I’d rather be safe than sorry…

No, you’ll get £11k less the state pension amount tax-free. So just under £3k at current rates.

I’d be genuinely surpised if by the time we retire, the state pension isn’t 100% means tested ie if you have any private provision, you get nought….

I know everything should be covered by the FSA etc, but I’d rather be safe than sorry…

Even covered by the FSA or whoever, any compensation isn’t going to be instant. I seem to remember it took about 6 months when the Icelandic banks went tits up.

I’d be genuinely surpised if by the time we retire, the state pension isn’t 100% means tested ie if you have any private provision, you get nought….

I’d be surprised if it is. The grey vote is only ever going to get more powerful.

unless we have a couple of cold snaps…

They’ll very likely be removing the tax relief on pension contributions though. In the 40%/45% bands, at least. LISAs are a basically a pilot scheme for that.

Which would make it even more of a benefit for contractors with Ltd companies, having the company pay all the contributions (as mine does).

Would it be unwise to just choose a ready made portfolio and let h and l do the rest..

No, not unwise at all. That’s what I do, the guys that manage these funds are experts, I’m not.

Which would make it even more of a benefit for contractors with Ltd companies, having the company pay all the contributions (as mine does).

If they remove tax relief company contributions will most likely be affected as well…..

the guys that manage these funds are experts,

well, they have just as much chance of predicting the future as you do…..

Even covered by the FSA or whoever, any compensation isn’t going to be instant. I seem to remember it took about 6 months when the Icelandic banks went tits up.

No FCA blanket compensation scheme for ISA invested in share etc.

State pension has all the characteristics of a ponzi scheme. In the next 20 years it has to go means testing, look out for stealth measures creeping in. In fact the new flat rate less contracted out years isnt far off.

Current pensioners never had it so good, house prices, state pensions, private pensions.

More likely pension age will continue to be increased, I would expect at least 70 by 2036.

Slight thread hijack: I’ve got my investments with a fund manager. Problem I have is their web site is utterly confusing and they don’t have a chart that shows the value of my investments since they started.

Can anyone recommend or suggest an alternative fund manager that has (numpty) user friendly website? Also, if anyone can recommend an IFA or investment expert (pm if necessary), that would be appreciated.